1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a stress dissolving refreshment system which can realize a mental refreshment by reducing mainly the user's mental feeling of fatigue in a short period.
The system of the kind referred to is useful when utilized in lowering or dissolving any mental stress accumulated during continued business or office work of the user so as to allow the user to return to the work again with a strong desire.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent office work, the mental stress is likely to be accumulated in office workers during continued operation of office machines and equipments for office automation and the like which have been widely and rapidly developed and adopted. There is now a demand to reduce such stress and refresh office workers, since it has been found that accumulatively increased mental stress causes deterioration of worker contemplative faculty or attentiveness. As a result the worker will become generally dull in and the office work will become less efficient which easily and often involve clerical error and so on.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publications Nos. 61-220653 and 62-38162, by H. Hagiwara et al disclose that stress dissolving devices. The devices are a chair, bed or the like having portions engageable with back and waist parts of the user which are equipped with a plurality of vibrately members separate vertical and horizontal arrays as mutually separated so that they will be actuated to produce a vibration pattern which varies in time on the basis of, for example, an undulatory phenomenon existing in the natural world. The user on the chair or bed is exposed to an optimum vibration for dissolving the user's mental feeling of fatigue. In another Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 63-283641, K. Araki at al have further suggested the use of electric resistance of skin as a measure denoting the degree of mental relaxation caused by vibration. The electrical resistance of skin in initial stage of use is detected at the user's finger tips where the maximum regulation of such resistance is assumed. The resistance is detected at predetermined time intervals and the vibration intensity is controlled in accordance with the degree of relaxation represented by such detection.
In still another Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 62-87168 of I. Mihara et al, a brain wave induction system is disclosed. The system detects fundamental wave of .alpha.-wave in the human brain waves and generates an output signal of a frequency slightly lower or higher than the detected fundamental wave. The user's sense of sight is stimulated by the output signal in an attempt to reduce the user's mental stress or to provide a mental relaxation.
According to the foregoing known systems, stress reduction to some extent has been achieved. On the other hand, there is still a need that, after the relaxation achieved by the reduction of stress, the level of the user's consciousness be elevated to attain effectively a mental refreshment. In this respect, the known systems do not elevate the consciousness level after the stress reduction. Thus, the known systems possess problems in that either that the consciousness level is suddenly enhanced after the use of the system or a rather long time is required for reaching an adequate consciousness level enough for carrying out normal office work.